A new issue of APDHA's yearly report
on human rights at the EU's southern borders, with reports from
Spain, Italy, Malta and Morocco, and in-depth sections on the
reasons for which Africans emigrate, on the migration flows and
the different kinds of human rights violations that take place,
and on the way in which the EU's borders are moving south. Finally,
the report features a table in which all the incidents resulting
in 921 deaths at the border in Andalucía, the Canary islands
or after setting off from the African coasts are documented.

While mentioning the "triumphalist"
figures on arrivals and migrants who were returned in 2007 produced
by the Spanish interior ministry, the report focuses on aspects
that it disregards, including what it terms "collateral
damage", both in terms of the victims, and the practices
to "regulate migratory flows" that undermine human
rights. Articles are included dealing with "the violence
of borders" at an international level, and the difficulties
of a physical kind that the lengthy journeys across deserts and
countries entail, the repression by members of law enforcement
agencies and the military en route to Europe.

With regards to Spain, the case
of unaccompanied minors is treated in depth, and three examples
are provided of different ways in which commitments included
in international conventions are ignored: the case of the Marine
I ship, whose more than 300 passengers were held in terrible
conditions in Mauritania and whose possibility of filing for
asylum experienced "serious difficulties", with many
of them transferred to countries other than their countries of
origin; the death of the Nigerian Osamyia Aikiptanhi while he
was being repatriated by airplane; and the situation of Pakistanis,
Bangladeshis and other Asians who lived in inhumane conditions
in Ceuta after fleeing from the city's detention centre - they
feared expulsion at a time when both Pakistan and Bangladesh
were in a difficult situation in which human rights were not
guaranteed.

Other matters that are analysed
include the activities of Frontex (described as the "acronym
of disgrace"), the Frontex Regional Control Centre in the
Canary islands, joint patrols and the donation of aircraft, funding
and details of the operations that have been carried out; co-operation
with Morocco and readmission and other agreements with other
countries that have resulted in Spanish interior ministry offices
opening in Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry
and Cape Verde. This co-operation is described as "conditioned"
(with development co-operation used as a bargaining tool) and
hence "contemptible", and as based on a notion of "illegal
emigration" that is very dangerous from a legal and human
rights-based viewpoint. The situation of sub-Saharans in transit
in Morocco is also looked at extensively.

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